单选题 Passage 1 There were two widely divergent influences on the early development of statistical methods. Statistics had a mother who was dedicated to keeping orderly records of governmental units (state and statistics come from the same Latin root, status) and a gentlemanly gambling father who relied on mathematics to increase his skill at playing the odds in games of chance. The influence of the mother on the offspring, statistics, is represented by counting, measuring, describing, tabulating, ordering, and the taking of censuses-- all of which led to modern descriptive statistics. From the influence of the father came modem inferential statistics, which is based squarely on theories of probability. Descriptive statistics involves tabulating, depicting, and describing collections of data. These data may be either quantitative, such as measures of height, intelligence, or grade level -- variables that are characterized by an underlying continuum -- or the data may represent qualitative variable, such as sex, college major, or personality type. Large masses of data must generally undergo a process of summarization or reduction before they are comprehensible. Descriptive statistics is a tool for describing or summarizing or reducing to comprehensible form the properties of an otherwise unwieldy mass of data. Inferential statistics is a formalized body of methods for solving another class of problems that present great difficulties for the unaided human mind. This general class of problems characteristically involves attempts to make predictions using a sample of observations. For example, a school superintendent wishes to determine the proportion of children in a large school system who come to school without breakfast, have been vaccinated for flu, or whatever. Having a little knowledge of statistics, the superintendent would know that it is unnecessary and inefficient to question each child; the proportion for the entire district could be estimated fairly accurately from a sample of as few as 100 children. Thus, the purpose of inferential statistics is to predict or estimate characteristics of a population from knowledge of the characteristics of only a sample of the population. (328 words)

单选题 Which of the following are counting and describing associated with?

单选题 Why does the author mention the "mother" and "father" in the first paragraph?

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 从文章第一段第二句“Statistics had a mother who was dedicated to keeping orderly records of governmental units(state and statistics come from the same Latin root，status)and a gentlemanly gambling father who relied on mathematics to increase his skill at playing the odds in games of chance．”可知，统计学一方面是要井井有条地作记录，另一方面是要通过数学运算进行估测，在这里作者运用了拟人手法以一种幽默风趣的方式交代了统计学的背景。据此判断，答案是A。

单选题 Which of the following is true of descriptive statistics?

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 从文章第二段最后两句“Large masses ofdata must generally undergo a process of summarization or reduction before they are comprehensible．Descriptive statistics is a tool for describing or summarizing or reducing to comprehensible form the properties of an otherwise unwieldy mass of data．”可知，描述统计学实际上是把大量复杂的数据进行简化，使其能够被人们所理解。据此判断，答案是C。

单选题 What is the purpose of examining a sample of a population?

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 从文章第三段最后两句“the proportion for the entire district could be estimated fairly accurately from a sample of as few as 100 children．Thus，the purpose of inferential statistics is to predict or estimate characteristics of a population from knowledge of the characteristics ofonly a sample ofthe population．”可知，通过抽样调查一部分群体的特征，便可以推测估算出整体群体的特征，也就是说抽样调查是为了估测整个群体的特征。据此判断，答案是D。